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Spawn of Sesame Street

The people, the puppets. The music, the singing. From Day 1, &quot;Sesame Street&quot; was mesmerizing. For kids and their parents, it was groundbreaking, bringing together two things they'd never had in one television show: entertainment and education. But&nbsp; what followed hasn't all been good for kids.

The Wiggles encourage kids to get up and move through music, rather than just sit and watch. (SUPPLIED FILE PICTURE)

By Kristin RushowyEducation Reporter

Mon., Nov. 9, 2009

The people, the puppets. The music, the singing.

The letters, the numbers, the lessons in sharing.

The fun.

From day one, Sesame Street was mesmerizing. For kids and their parents, it was groundbreaking, bringing together two things they'd never had in one television show: entertainment and education.

The show was created to help children in poor neighbourhoods be better prepared for school. But what has followed in its path, 40 years later, is a bit murkier. Kids today may have more choices than ever about what they watch, but critics say that quality in many shows is lacking. All the while, researchers are finding more and more evidence that television viewing can harm kids, cause aggression, hamper their development and is contributing to the obesity epidemic.

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In Canada, children aged 2 to 11 watch roughly 14 hours of television a week, or two hours a day. For some, that's more time than they spend with their parents.

Patrizia Albanese, an associate professor in Ryerson University's sociology department, reports in her new book, Children in Canada Today, that while some studies show kids who watch a lot of TV do poorly in school, there are some programs that "help some kids develop important skills that contribute to early educational success."

Like Sesame Street – which, as she notes, was a child of the civil rights movement – they can also teach sharing and diversity, essentially helping to shape behaviour.

James Nadler, an assistant professor in the Radio and Television Arts program at Ryerson, says early childhood development is part of the 13-week children's television production course.

"(The course) looks at early childhood development and how to tie it into what kids take out of shows, what you should be putting into shows, and the various stages children go through in terms of watching and growth and understanding, as well as more general issues about body image and obesity," Nadler says.

But one thing in children's TV he finds disconcerting is shows popping up for "pre-verbal kids ... that didn't used to be the case."

Even more disturbing to some are the shows and DVDs marketed to children under age 2. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against TV for this age group, and studies have found babies who watch such videos are less communicative than those who don't.

Just recently, the Walt Disney Company had to begin offering refunds for $15.99 Baby Einstein DVDs that claimed to boost little ones' brain power.

For Marni Binder, in the School of Early Childhood Education at Ryerson, TV can interfere with the most important thing in children's lives: play.

"There is a place (for shows like Sesame Street)," she says, "but there needs to be another balance. The whole idea of playing is being lost."

Any letters or numbers they learn from the tube are rote, she says.

"Kids are hands-on and tactile and have to engage with real people; they socially construct their world through their play," she says. "That's how language develops," not by mimicking what they've seen on television.

She's also concerned about the marketing. "What happens then is a very sort of narrow form of learning: the colouring books, the workbooks that are related to things that really make me nervous."

Stacks of such items, from kid-targeted titles such as Hannah Montana and Disney princesses, line store shelves.

"I would rather the child actually be given paper and crayons and markers and paints," Binder says. "They need to be stimulated, they need to be engaged – people talking to them, the need to be touching things, they need to be allowed to move. Sitting in front of the TV, the only thing that's really moving potentially is their eyeballs."

Children's lack of activity is a concern that, oddly, the TV shows try to address as children are watching.

For Murray Cook, a member of the children's blockbuster entertainment group The Wiggles, the television shows they do are all music-based. "We do encourage children to get up and move," he said. "It's really important."

He also points to the group's new website that tracks how long children have spent online, and then encourages them to get up and move around before doing any more.

"We really do want children to be active," says Cook, who, like other members of the group, is an early childhood educator. "We have things in our songs about getting up and dancing, and sing about fruit salad, encouraging them to eat healthy."

While those are positive messages, the messages in other shows are worrisome. And with many children plopped in front of the TV without any adult supervision, no one is there prodding kids to think about what they are watching.

Albanese cites pervasive "gender role socialization," and notes that female and male characters tend to take on traditional, stereotypical identities; boys are a part of the action and females are followers.

And Binder cautions against using the TV as a babysitter, however tempting that may be.

Television "should be balanced with sitting down and looking at a beautiful and quality picture book and reading with a child," she says.

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